Strong central character overcomes flaws of 'Khmer Heart'>Cinemax movie focuses on defender of Cambodian orphans

TV REVIEW "My Khmer Heart" 5:30 p.m. today, Cinemax (repeats 9:30 a.m. Feb. 11) My Khmer Heart" started out as a sweet, alternately touching and funny documentary about a milkman's daughter from Australia who went to Cambodia and wound up adopting 60 orphans. But while the film was being made, that country - still mourning the 2 million who perished in Pol Pot's killing fields - was thrown once again into political turmoil. Suddenly the film's subject found herself in harm's way, and "My Khmer Heart" was transformed from personal portrait into dramatic narrative. The film, which has its television premiere Tuesday on Cinemax, was shot mostly at the orphanage outside Phnom Penh run by Geraldine Cox, a big-boned, apple-cheeked woman who went to Cambodia in 1970 to work in the Australian foreign service and fell in love with the country and its people. In 1993 Cox began supporting an orphanage situated on land owned by Princess Marie, the wife of Cambodia's co-prime minister, Prince Ranariddh. Three years later she moved there and took over day-to-day care of the orphanage and its three score of children. Intelligent, good-humored and unusually candid about her private life, Cox is a documentarian's dream. She also has a dark side, and more than once in this film she unhesitatingly leads us there. When she had trouble getting pregnant, she became increasingly desperate and then despondent. She adopted a war-scarred Cambodian orphan, only to learn that she was profoundly handicapped. Her determination to care for her child took her to extremes that are as painful to hear as they are for her to recount. In 1997, after filmmakers Janine Hosking and Leonie Lowe thought their work was done, a coup attempt forced the prince and princess to flee Cambodia. In the ensuing chaos, Cox emerged as one of the ex-prime-minister's most visible supporters. She was featured on the Australian nightly news, calling for an end to the violence and denouncing the prince's opponent, Hun Sen, as a "killer." For a while she too had to leave the country. Though the prince was allowed back into Cambodia, the balance of power had swung over to his rival. Then, another crisis. This one cast the future of the orphanage into grave doubt. Only one person, it seemed, could rescue them: the aforementioned "killer," Hun Sen. Pragmatically, Cox decided to throw herself at his mercy and plead for her orphans. We see her discussing her strategy, while her children rehearse a traditional dance they will perform for the prime minister. The dance is carefully calculated to melt Hun Sen's heart and soften him up to Cox's pitch. I don't blame Cox for doing what she did; it only confirmed her absolute devotion to her orphans. What I take issue with is the filmmakers' refusal to address their own role in filming the crucial summit meeting. If it ever occurred to them that Hun Sen might be employing them for his own image-making purposes, they never let on here. The filmmakers may dismiss the idea as preposterous - but they still owed it to their audience to address it in their otherwise spellbinding film. "My Khmer Heart" also features the bellowing voice of Sir Peter Ustinov, who every few minutes reads us a saying of Buddha. Though Ustinov's voice is a bit incongruous with the rest of the film, the sayings remind us of the importance of strong character, and Geraldine Cox has plenty of that. You can reach Aaron Barnhart through the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com @ART CAPTION:Geraldine Cox (center) with some of the 60 orphans she cares for in 'My Khmer Heart' @ART CREDIT:Cinemax @ART:Photo (color)